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Hey guys. Today’s article starts off with an apology from Jay. You need to realize that Jay is now at Worlds. I got this from him via email so late on Friday night that I didn’t even see it until Sat morning. Jay has better things to be concerned with at this point, yet he was up writing this article for you and I. I think, in his mind, he agreed to write something, and he wasn’t going to go back on his word. In that case, he could have just gotten behind and just gave it half an effort. Nope. He gave us a great retrospective and then apologized that he wanted to give us more but couldn’t. Thanks Jay! We hope you’re killin’ it at Worlds!

– Ed

So first an apology. Originally I had intended this to be a very detailed look back on the formats of the past. I always enjoyed looking back at some of the different formats and seeing what was competitive, what people liked to play, etc. and I was hoping you guys would to. I ran into two major problems when I was writing this article though.

First, I told Ed I would have this done the week I was leaving for Worlds, which, at the time, I didn’t think was a major issue. This deadline snuck upon me much quicker than I thought it would, and real life got the better of me. Those of you who have read my Underground Articles for Six Prizes, know how important good solid articles are to me, and I’m afraid this doesn’t live up to my normal standards.

Second, going in, I didn’t realize how lengthy this article could and should be. I could write a full article about each one of these formats, and it wasn’t until I started writing did I realize how much information I was leaving out that I really wanted to put in. All of this being said, I really do hope you get some enjoyment out of this article, since I do feel it does have some nice information in it people will enjoy. I guess what I’m asking is for all of you to accept this more as rough draft or partial article rather than a finally polished one. I will be more than happy to answer questions or comments about anything I talked about or a deck I didn’t get to you wanted to know more about.

-Jay

Something I’ve always found interesting is going back and reading tournament reports from previous years. It normally brings back good memories of friends and tournaments, so for those of you who’ve been here since the beginning hopefully you’ll enjoy this walk through memory lane and for those of you who are more new to the TCG hopefully you’ll enjoy learning a little bit about our history.

The Early Years

I don’t remember how the divisions worked, but I knew there was two divisions an older and younger division. The older division actually had a metagame that was mainly dominated by variations of Haymaker, Raindance, Mr. Mime/Alakazam, and Wigglytuff/Basics. The younger was dominated by mostly random stuff. Continue reading "The History of the Pokemon TCG Through the Ages"